High end audio predictions and wish lists for 2021

My Predictions (In no particular order and not limited to 2021)
- streaming will continue to grow; it is the way most folks get access to music today and can only increase into the future
- Spotify will remain the no. 1 streaming service for the foreseeable future, but some big company will buy it.
- Tidal and Qobuz are tiny pebbles on the beach. I can't see them surviving long term
- LP sales will continue to grow because young folks consider it cool to buy LPs. Sustainable? Time will tell.
- Regular (MP3) Music Downloads are gone. Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Spotify killed that business.
- High Rez downloads will continue to decline (Qobuz and Tidal are responsible for that).
- CD sales will continue to decline. I thought that CDs were already dead but someone gave me two CDs for Christmas (they are unopened but I added them to my Qobuz library). :D
- On that note, maybe CDs will survive as gift-giving ideas but the problem might soon be finding a CD player to play them. Cars don’t even come with CD players anymore!
- Roon will become the ‘CarPlay’ of high-end brands. Brands have to have it to increase the marketability of their products. Even high-end brands that claim that their own software sounds better, will be forced to jump on the Roon bandwagon.
- However... Roon will remain a niche product unless Spotify allows connectivity and that is very unlikely to happen.
- There are way too many brands in the high-end, consolidation and attrition are coming. A few big corporations will end up owning many of today’s high-end brands.
- Objective-oriented reviewers will continue to challenge many long-held views held by subjective reviewers and more folks (particularly the younger ones) are paying attention.
- The market for ultra high-end products will continue to grow.
 
rbbert said:
There are large numbers of (now) 40-50 somethings with money still to burn from the first dot.com boom. As they age and spend more time at home and with families I suspect at least some of them will turn to home theater and from there to high-end audio. Even today, despite the pandemic, there are successful start-ups and even established companies now going public (AirBnB?) with many employees paid in part with stock and stock options who are going to have lots more disposable income.
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Managers get some $250 to $500k. Directors get about a million. Really nothing when you live in San Fran or Seattle. VP get about 3M to 5M. Maybe. Chiefs and Exec VP reach into the real spending money. But there are only 8 or 10 of them in each startup.
 
I agree streaming will grow and Spotify will dominate.
LP sales will stay stong. Heck, we must have 20 or 30 decent vinyl shops around Seattle.
Even though I view the people of the PNW and a lot of northern California as land rich, not paycheck rich, stratospheric prices will continue. There are those with crazy money around. Especially when you add Europe and Asia as a target market.
Integrated units will be more popular. Space and quality will drive it.
Cable prices will continue to climb. But budget models will still sell well.
Home theater will continue to decline.
Headphones will continue to grow.
 
Kingrex said:
Managers get some $250 to $500k. Directors get about a million. Really nothing when you live in San Fran or Seattle. VP get about 3M to 5M. Maybe. Chiefs and Exec VP reach into the real spending money. But there are only 8 or 10 of them in each startup.
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I was referring to the 1990's dot.com boom, where dozens and occasionally hundreds of employees from janitors to secretaries received stock or stock options worth hundreds of thousands into the millions. Those are the people who are now in their 40's-50's and not necessarily living in high-cost parts of the country any more.
 
rbbert said:
I was referring to the 1990's dot.com boom, where dozens and occasionally hundreds of employees from janitors to secretaries received stock or stock options worth hundreds of thousands into the millions. Those are the people who are now in their 40's-50's and not necessarily living in high-cost parts of the country any more.
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Oh yes, in our company before I retired, we gave out stock options and yearly bonuses of course depending on your overall yearly performance but everyone got something. IF the company was doing good they passed it down. OF course the higher you're pay grade the more you got. and that was for a company that had 18000 or so employees nationwide.
 
rbbert said:
I was referring to the 1990's dot.com boom, where dozens and occasionally hundreds of employees from janitors to secretaries received stock or stock options worth hundreds of thousands into the millions. Those are the people who are now in their 40's-50's and not necessarily living in high-cost parts of the country any more.
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You ever hear of the lottery syndrome. A large jolt of money is quickly squandered. Houses, cars, furniture, education.
 
Kingrex said:
You ever hear of the lottery syndrome. A large jolt of money is quickly squandered. Houses, cars, furniture, education.
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squandered. Houses, cars, furniture, education. , what kind of education. All the money I put towards education worked, even towards my children. For sure wasn't wasted. And its hard to loose money in real estate unless a person can't
pay the taxes and insurance and basic upkeep. .
 
Mike said:
Prediction? Joe gets a new amp.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
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That’s the only prediction on this thread so far that I would agree will come true in 2021.
 
My predictions for 2021 ...

- Alexx V2 at a higher price
- Replacement for DCS Vivaldi Stack possibly without a transport
- Hoping for Esoteric D02XD ... that may be a long shot though
- Audio Research updates the Ref10 Preamp and Phono Preamp ... also a new amplifier or two
- I add a Cybershaft clock to my existing Esoteric P02X/D02X combo

Happy New Year everyone!

George
 
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